


I'll take care of mine

by Angel_Wings14



Series: Stingy Fingers [3]
Category: Bear in the Big Blue House, Charlie and Lola, LazyTown, Monsters Inc. (Movies), Salad Fingers, SpongeBob SquarePants (Cartoon), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Art School, Butterflies, Child Death (past), Drinking, Drunk Sex, Ghosts, M/M, Mpreg, Non-graphic depictions of labour, Semi-Public Sex, Sorry Not Sorry, Tentacle Sex, childhood illness, emo Stingy, many cameos - Freeform, vine references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:54:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29766153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angel_Wings14/pseuds/Angel_Wings14
Summary: Following Salad Fingers' untimely death, he and Stingy both struggle to move on. They certainly go about it in very different ways. Stingy embraces his outer emo and his inner thot. Salad Fingers searches for a meaningful afterlife with his new (dead) friends...The third and final instalment of the Stingy Fingers universe that no one asked for. You're welcome :)
Relationships: past Salad Fingers/Stingy
Series: Stingy Fingers [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992667





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read the first two parts this may not make much sense. Also shout out to the artist from the first fic giving me the idea for this prologue after pointing out they certainly weren't very safe on their wedding night :D

“WAKE UP SLEEPYHEAD!” Trixie yelled to Sportacus, who was tangled up in his blankets. He murmured incoherently in response. Behind him another figure rose up from underneath the sheets.

“What the fuck, man?” Robbie Rotten groaned out sleepily.

Trixie’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped.

“Don’t swear in front of the kids,” Sportacus admonished, thumbing a trickle of dribble from the corner of Robbie’s mouth with a droopy smile. He turned back to Trixie. “What is it?”  
“It’s time,” she said, her excitement from earlier returning full force. “The Mayor is with Stingy at the hospital this very minute! Come on, there’s no time to lose!”

Sportacus and Robbie hurried to put on their clothes and followed Trixie out of the door. It was still dark, the moon hanging lazily in the early morning sky. The hospital wasn’t far, but by the time they reached it Robbie was huffing and panting. Sportacus rolled his eyes.

Even from the outer door, they could all hear the screaming. It seemed they had made it just in time. The receptionist was quick to direct them to the right room. Just outside the door, Pixel and Ziggy stood guard, pale-faced and eyes wide with horror. Inside, the Mayor was fretting and pacing, wringing his hands and mumbling a jumble of “oh my”s and “oh deary me”s. Stephanie had also gone pale, but only because of the pressure Stingy was exerting on her hand.

Stingy himself was there in the middle of it all, knees up either side of his distended torso. His usually shiny hair was matted against his forehead, sweat dripping down the sides of his face and mingling with the tears. He laboured, breath coming heavily between the gasps and shrieks.

A nurse dressed in powder blue scrubs popped up from where she was examining Stingy between the legs.

“You’re fully dilated, Stingy, it’s time to push!” She said, patting his knee reassuringly.

Stingy, past the point of words, bore down and cried out in pain. A few long minutes later, another cry rang out through the room. The nurse held up a blood-covered green baby and proudly proclaimed, “it’s a boy!”

Stingy slumped back against the cushions tiredly. His eyes had hollows around them, telling of more than just this one sleepless night. The baby was gingerly placed in his arms once it had been cleaned off a little. It had a fluffy patch of hair, the same shade as Stingy’s, but the wide eyes that fixed Stingy with an unsettling gaze were all from his other father. Stingy’s eyes blurred with tears.

“I can’t,” he choked out. “I know he’s mine, but I can’t do this.”

Robbie Rotten stepped out from the shadowy corner he had taken up. (Old habits die hard.)

“Salad Fingers was like a brother to me,” he started haltingly. “If you need someone to care for the child…”

“We’d be happy to take him,” Sportacus finished, a firm hand on Robbie’s shoulder. He smiled sadly down at Stingy, who had turned his face away from the baby yet was still gently clinging to him. He was so young to know such sorrow, to have to make such a decision.

Another long moment stretched between them like taffy, when finally Stingy nodded and handed the new born baby over to Sportacus, a gold ring still glinting on his left hand.

“I-I trust you,” Stingy stuttered. “And I’m sorry but I can’t stay here. There are too many memories…”

“You could always go to that art school you were looking at?” The Mayor offered. “I’ll help you pay for it.”  
“Great idea!” Stephanie enthused. Stingy’s eyes once more welled up, this time with the love and support of his friends.

“Yes,” he decided. “I’ll go to art school. I have to move on, and I can’t do that here… There are too many ghosts.”

Unseen, a spectral shade lingered in the doorway of the hospital room.

Salad Fingers’ ghost looked on in sadness as his child was brought into the world, only to never know the touch of his salad fingers. But if Stingy was finally moving on, so would he. 


	2. A New Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stingy starts art school. He meets some new people and tries some new things. Meanwhile Salad Fingers has trouble finding out how to move on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have updated the tags, so please be warned there is some explicit content in this chapter!

Scheving University was imposing in its magnitude, and Stingy felt small. He stood there looking up at the magnificent buildings, suitcase by his feet, quaking in trepidation. He had already registered online a few days ago, so there was nothing left but to find his dorm room, but he was very much lost in this campus maze.

A passing creature, easily 7 feet in stature and covered in a downy turquoise pelt with purple spots, paused as he loped easily past.

“You alright there, sport?” He asked genially.

“Sp-sport?!” Stingy sputtered. “I thought I’d gotten away from all that exercise nonsense when I left Lazy Town!”

“Um…Ok?” The gently spoken giant seemed unsure. He tried again. “Can I help you find somewhere?”

Stingy eyed him wearily. He was very tall and scary, especially with the horns protruding from his skull and his pointed teeth and spiked tail, but he was also wearing a letterman jacket and glasses. He was probably just another student, and maybe he could help Stingy locate his dorms.

“I’m looking for _my_ dorms,” Stingy said. “I’m to go to the Nickelodeon building.”  
“Oh sure I know that one,” the monster-man replied, shoulders relaxing as he oriented himself to give directions. “You just want to go down here, follow the path round to the right and it’s the big blue house with the white windows. Bear, the dean there, should be out front today to welcome the freshers, he’s great-”

Stingy nodded along, but it seemed his helper was wanting to ramble on and he simply didn’t have the patience for such things.

“Thank you,” Stingy cut off, quite impolitely, tone heavily implying that he was anything but thankful. He huffed and nodded to himself before turning to trot up the path as directed.

Sully scratched his head and sighed, watching him go. Kids these days.

As predicted, a large bear was standing outside the big blue house, under a sign proclaiming it to be the Nickelodeon dorms. He seemed jovial, handing out packets and room assignments to the gaggle of young adults gathered by his paws.

Stingy approached and the bear’s large head swung towards him, appraising him thoughtfully.

“You must be… Mr. Fingers?” The bear questioned.

Stingy twisted the gold band on his finger anxiously. He had come here to get over his lost love, but there were still so many reminders. This had to stop now. He took the ring off and placed it in his waistcoat pocket.

“Just Stingy,” he asserted with a curt nod.

The bear was unperturbed by this. He had seen many a student come and go with all sorts of history. If this young man wanted to be known by his first name only then so be it.

“Stingy then,” he said warmly, and started sifting through the pile of packets in his hands. “Ah here we are, room 2 in dormitory 2, nice and easy to remember. Your roommate is already here, he got here yesterday. Alright then. Goodbye now!”

Stingy took his packet wordlessly and stepped through the big white doors as the dean turned away to a new student. There was a large plaque with arrows that indicated the different dorms, 1 and 2 on the ground floor and, 3 and 4 on the first. Stingy followed the arrow around to the right, through yet another door, emerging into a well worn living room.

One of the walls was lined with counter space, two large fridges taking up the corner. The opposite wall was plastered with student posters and a flaky cork board that had seen so many pins it was barely functional anymore. The centre was filled with an assortment of furniture, sagging sofas, brightly coloured plastic chairs, a stained table littered with leaflets and mugs, and a foosball table tucked neatly against one wall with half the figures missing. Stingy appraised this all with an imperious air. It certainly was a step down from his airy flat in Lazy Town, but it would do for now. _Part of the student experience_ , the Mayor had said (though Stingy thought he perhaps just couldn’t afford anything nicer alongside the schooling fees), so Stingy would put up with it.

There was an archway that led to a corridor on the other side of the room. Stingy picked his way towards it through the maze of chairs. It was a fire hazard, he was sure, to have such a cluttered route to the door.

In the hallway, there were four more doors leading off, each numbered 1 to 4. Stingy routed around in the envelope he’d been given to fish out a key for room 2. It slotted smoothly into the keyhole, it was satisfying. If Salad Fingers were here, he’d take it out and reinsert it a few more times… But Stingy just turned it, eyes stinging from the thought of it.

Through the slightly blurry haze of tears, a green figure emerged on the other side of the door.

Stingy had decided, when buying things for his new room, to go with a black theme. He was mourning, and he found that his art came easier when he embraced the darker emotions. He’d also brought a tin of paint and a special Lazy Town paintbrush. It only took a few broad strokes of the brush before his whole wall was painted, like magic.

He hung up a dark tapestry and accessorised the desk on his side of the room with black folders and a pen holder. His sheets were also a dark grey flannel that he stretched over the single mattress, covering the protruding springs. The only splash of colour in the whole scheme was a single photograph, taken the night of his wedding.

“Hmm, decorated like a Sith lord, you have,” his roommate hummed. He was an odd fellow, smaller and older than Stingy, though his ears more than made up in width what he was lacking in height.

“Am I supposed to know what that is?” Stingy sighed.

“Hmm,” came the reply. Stingy rolled his eyes and flopped down onto the creaky bed.

There wasn’t much to do on campus in the evenings. Stingy had attended some of the freshers events the first week, but had quickly grown tired of the immaturity of the other students. They may have all been around his age but he had certainly lived more than they had, not to mention he had always been mature for his age. At least his roommate was tolerable, if not a bit condescending.

It was a few weeks in, and Stingy had dug into his course with the fervour of a man trying to forget. But it was Friday and the emptiness of the weekend stretched out in front of him, like a gaping chasm. He sighed at the ceiling. He was so far ahead on his assignments he couldn’t even distract himself with work.

His sighing must have been too loud, as his roommate turned irritably.

“Somewhere better to be, don’t you have?” Yoda sniped. He was waist deep in his music assignments and didn’t need the interruption of Stingy sighing every few minutes.

Stingy gaped at the impertinence. He snapped his mouth shut and stormed out without another word.

There was one thing he hadn’t done since coming to university that his fellow students had sworn was part of the experience. He hadn’t hooked up with a stranger.

He had grown up in such a strict household that he never would have imagined doing such a thing, but now… It wasn’t like he was a virgin anymore, and what did he care what happened to him? It’s not like it mattered anyway, and since his wedding night he found he had a newly emerged itch that he just couldn’t scratch by himself.

Resolved in his aim, Stingy set forth into the cold October air in search of the only bar on campus. It was small and sticky, but he didn’t know where else he could go for a quick lay.

The atmosphere in the university bar, Firth’s, was heavy and hot with sweat, especially after being outside for the short walk from the dorm. It was crowded, all the students celebrating the end of another week of learning. Stingy wended his way towards the bar and ordered a glass of wine. He knew it wasn’t very student-esque of him to do so, but he couldn’t stomach the cheap beers and tasteless spirits completely sober. After that first glass, however, anything was possible.

There was some live music playing in the corner, making conversation difficult amongst the patrons of the bar, but it was good to dance to in the small cleared-out dance space. Stingy downed his third drink and set out to the floor to dance. He shuffled from side to side, his fists clenched but swinging freely, his head thrown back in ecstasy.

A few people danced with him but he wasn’t particularly interested in them and they quickly moved on. It wasn’t until much later, when the live music had finally transitioned to pre-recorded playlists, that Stingy finally laid eyes on someone that piqued his interest. It was the clarinettist from the band. He was leaning against the back wall with an air of artistic ennui, surveying the crowd with bored eyes.

Stingy ordered one last drink, a double vodka and coke, and made his way over. He was trying to affect a disinterested air, but he was stumbling a little with the amount of alcohol coursing through his system. He didn’t approach directly, preferring to lean against the wall next to the tall handsome stranger.

In his drunken haze, the large eyes and green skin made Stingy think of other places, other nights. The recollection of those times had a sobering effect, but the sadness that accompanied the memories only served to harden his resolve. He needed something new. And this fellow might just do the trick. He sighed quietly to himself.

The stranger looked down at this, though it was far to loud for him to have heard. “Can I help you?” He drawled out nasally.

Stingy looked him up and down. His four legs were long and spindly and ended in a shapely rear. (He wasn’t wearing anything under his brown polo shirt, leaving him bare.) He continued up, up the long neck, past his bulbous nose and to the spotted bald head.

“I don’t know,” he smirked. “Can you?”  
The green stranger licked his lips as he eyed Stingy with a sudden interest. After a tense moment he held out a tentacled hand.

“I’m Squidward.”  
“Edward?” Stingy leaned in, struggling to hear over the noise.

“No, Squidward!”

“I’m Stingy,” Stingy said, finally gripping the suckers in a firm handshake, enjoying the squish of them against the palm of his hand. They held on for a moment longer than was conventional amongst upstanding members of society, before they released in a number of tiny pops.

Squidward didn’t lean away once they let go, and neither did Stingy. The air became heated between them as their eyes held. When the moment finally became unbearable, Stingy released a shaky breath.

“I liked your playing,” he said, breath dancing across Squidward’s face making his nose swing.

“Thank you,” Squidward replied.

There didn’t seem to be more forthcoming so Stingy put on his most seductive look and swayed away from the wall, swinging his hips from side-to-side as he held out his hand for Squidward to take once more.

“Care to dance?”

“I’d love to.”

They made their way to the dance floor, which was now less crowded than it was when the band played. It allowed Stingy to pull out some of his more elaborate moves, but he was quickly distracted by his partner. Squidward had closed his eyes and stuck out his rear, bouncing it up and down in time to the music. Stingy’s eyes were drawn to it, hypnotised. It was firm yet it rippled with each jerk. So hypnotic.

Squidward opened his eyes and noticed Stingy’s preoccupation. Just as he thought. He smirked to himself and pulled Stingy into him, grinding against him with thrusting gyrations. Stingy’s hips followed helplessly, his face falling slack at the sensation. It had been so long since he had been held this way. He wanted more.

He pulled Squidward’s head down so he could speak directly in the tympanic membrane, right where Stingy’s own ears were on the side of his head.

“Wanna get out of here?” he whisper-shouted.

“I’ll do you one better,” Squidward said, then led them both back towards the bathrooms. Stingy felt butterflies erupt in his stomach, his head swimming with the alcohol and anticipation.

The stalls were blissfully empty.

The lock clicking into place echoed around the tiles, making Stingy feel both small and larger than life. He could feel his anticipation well up and spill out. He poured the feeling into Squidward, dragging his lips down to his own and kissing vigorously.

Squidward trailed his mouth to Stingy’s earlobe where he sucked and blew on it. Stingy shivered. Squidward was confident, it oozed out of his pores. He knew he was good at this. He felt his way down Stingy’s body, finding the tent in the front of his black jeans. He loved this part.

Stingy panted loudly, hands scrabbling at the wall. He felt his zip lower and a cool breeze over his heated member. His jeans were too tight for underwear, and Squidward was thrilled by the revelation. He pulled Stingy’s jeans down further, exposing his backside. Stingy flinched as the cold plaster hit the newly bare skin, so Squidward pulled him forward toward him. He left his tentacle there on the firm globe of Stingy’s ass, slowly inching it round to the twitching tunnel nestled in the cleft, as he engulfed Barry Robertson in his mouth.

Stingy cried out, uncaring of who might hear. Squidward, however, knew that if they were discovered they would be kicked out, leaving them both unsatisfied, so he utilised another of his tentacles to sucker onto Stingy’s neck and slithered the tip in his mouth. Stingy instinctively suckled on it, quieting his cries.

Squidward’s mucosal glands on his tentacles smoothed the way as he finally entered Stingy from behind. He took it so well, shaking and falling apart around Squidward’s limbs. He decided he needed more leverage, using yet more suckers to attach himself to the wall without dislodging Barry Robertson from his mouth or any of his other tentacles.

Stingy felt so full, feeling sucking from all over his body and delicious friction from within. Even his first time couldn’t compare to the overwhelming sensations of this onslaught, yet his mind turned time and time again to his late husband. Through the tears leaking down his blissed-out face, he could only make out a green blur, and he allowed himself to imagine. He was thankful for the tentacle in his mouth, as it stopped him from crying out the wrong name. He suckled it harder.

Ecstasy crashed over him in waves, each bringing him closer and closer to the edge of his passion. Squidward could feel how ready he was, feeling the tightening of his hole and balls, and doubled down. He, too, was close and the moment he tasted Stingy’s bitter release on his tongue, he exploded his pleasures all over the sticky tiled floor.

They panted together, ears ringing in the sudden silence.

Stingy smiled to himself as he pulled up his trousers, sashaying out of the bathroom as Squidward watched him walk away. The night was refreshing against Stingy’s heated sweaty skin, and he vowed to have a shower when he got in. He tentatively touched the sucker-mark hickeys on his neck as he let himself into the second room of the second dorm, floating on a post-coital cloud.

_Meanwhile…_

Salad Fingers didn’t know how to move on. It was all well and good saying he was going to, but the actual doing part had him stumped.

He wandered out of the limits of Lazy Town, searching for someone to help. He drifted from town to town, and tried to speak to so many people but they never responded. He reached out, time and time again, only for his salad fingers to pass through their shoulders, their hands. They didn’t even look away when he stared into their soul with his unblinking eyes, though sometimes it seemed they were supressing a shiver.

As the days wore on, his ghostly pallor became washed out and greyer. He wished he could go back to his friends and family, but it was better to be ignored by strangers than the people who should love him.

He slumped heavily against the post of a bus stop. He wasn’t sure why some objects would hold him, like seats and poles, and others he could walk straight through, like walls and people. Across the road from him, seated at the other bus stop, was a melancholy monochrome boy.

Salad Fingers let his gaze linger, unafraid of being caught out. The boy had hair that fell across his forehead, unmoving in the light breeze as he stared up at the sky. Salad Fingers liked his striped jumper, the dark colours reflecting his desolate mood. Somehow, just having something else, someone else, looking as lonely as he was, made him feel more settled than he had in a long while.

The next day, he found himself once again at the bus stop. The grey boy was there again. Salad Fingers raised his hand to wave at the boy, but caught himself halfway remembering he wouldn’t be seen. But the boy looked up at the movement and waved back.

“Oh!” Salad Fingers said, the first thing he had said aloud in his ghost voice.

The boy smiled. Salad Fingers returned the smile, feeling something stir inside him for the first time since he saw his son.

“A friend?” he asked himself. “J-just for me?”  
He crossed the road, eager to introduce himself to the boy. He didn’t bother looking before he did, and the cars passed harmlessly through him. He didn’t have to worry about such things anymore.

“He-hello, little boy,” Salad Fingers said as he ducked under the bus shelter. “Ca-can you see me?”

“Of course I can see you,” the boy replied, swinging his legs happily.

“But I-I am a ghost,” Salad Fingers said, eyes widening.

“So am I,” the boy giggled. This strange man was the funniest thing he had seen since Lola stopped playing with him. He hadn’t seen her in so long, but it had been longer since she had seen him. But he was hoping that when she finally came home, she would once more. “I’m Soren Lorenson.”

“Wh-what a funny name,” Salad Fingers said. “My name i-is Salad Fingers.”  
The little boy tumbled over in peals of laughter.

“My name *hic* isn’t silly *hic* YOURS is!” he hiccoughed through his giggles. He loved to laugh. It had been so long.

Salad Fingers guessed he was right though, his name was pretty funny. He awkwardly laughed along.

“Heh… heh… heheh…”

Once their laughter died down a little, Salad Fingers took a seat on the bus stop bench next to Soren Lorenson. They resumed looking out at the street, watching the world pass by and change without them in silence.

A butterfly, one of the last ones of the season, fluttered by. It got caught up in an updraught from the warm tarmac and danced through the air in a beautiful ballet. Salad Fingers reached out his long tongue to ensnare it, but it just flew through with naught but a shiver.

“I like to look at the butterflies,” Soren Lorenson sighed. “I remember each one that comes past, so that I can tell Lola each one she’s missed.”

Salad Fingers looked down at the boy at his side. He licked his lips and cocked his head in confusion.

“Wh-who is Lo-Lola?”

“Lola is my best friend,” he said, but he looked sad for someone talking about a best friend. “Well, she was. But she got big, and now we never play.”

“Oh.”  
“Sometimes there are other children to play with if I go to the park,” he continued. “But none of them are as fun as Lola…”

Soren Lorenson sniffled a little. He had been lonely before he met Lola. His parents had been so sad, even before he died. They tried so hard not to show it when they came to visit him at the hospital, but he could tell. For a while afterwards, he could still play with his brother and sister, but his mummy and daddy didn’t like that when they found out, and they made everyone move away and Soren Lorenson was all alone before Charlie and Lola moved into his house. And now he’d been left alone again, but it’s ok because he knew she’d come back. She had to.

“M-my best f-friend can’t see me either” Salad Fingers stuttered hesitantly. He was never good at comforting upset children, but he knew what it was like to be lonely. “We h-had a-a baby, but I-I never held him.”  
“That’s sad,” Soren Lorenson said, looking up at Salad Fingers with big wet eyes.

“But I know that I must move on,” he continued sagely. “M-maybe you should too.”

Soren Lorenson frowned at that. Then he pouted. Then he jumped down, just so he could stamp his feet a little.

“But I want my Lola,” he stropped.

Salad Fingers wasn’t sure what to do so he stood too.

“I want my Lola!” Soren Lorenson cried again.

Salad Fingers tentatively reached out his salad fingers to pat the boy on the head.

“I wish I had never died! I wish I never met her! I hate her, I hate her, I hate her!!”

Soren Lorenson threw himself to the floor, flailing his arms and legs. Salad Fingers watched on in fascination as Soren Lorenson slowly tired of crying.

Salad Fingers folded his long legs underneath himself, falling like stacks of Tetris pieces next to the grey child. He once more reached out to pat him, humming to himself as he did. It calmed the boy down faster than he could have imagined.

“My mummy used to sing that song,” Soren Lorenson mumbled. Salad Fingers just smiled and went back to humming.

They sat like that for a long while, days and nights fading in and out with no heed of the lost souls huddled under the changing sky. Finally, Soren Lorenson broke the silence.

“Maybe it would be easier to… to move on…” he started, lip trembling. “If we did it together?”

“I-I’d like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo... There are a few references in this chapter that I hope people got:  
> Scheving University is named after the Lazy Town creator Magnús Scheving, who also plays Sportacus in the show.   
> David Firth created Salad Fingers, hence the university bar.   
> The dorm room that Yoda is in is Room 2, Dorm 2 AKA R2D2 :D  
> Yes, Salad Fingers named Stingy’s penis Barry Robertson in the last one, so of course that had to continue here.
> 
> BTW Squidward’s band is playing Cantina Band song from Star Wars. 
> 
> How many of those did you pick up on? Let me know in the comments :p

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyyy us again... I will be uploading as I write this so it may not be super regular BUT I do have a plan so worry ye not! Also I will be updating the tags as I go along to avoid hella spoilers because this one will be a wild ride. Let me know in the comments what you think might happen ;)


End file.
